Found in the archives: Tom Hanks performed at WSU

Just happened to run across this item in the University Archives, thanks to a tip from Abe Bassett, 1st chair of WSU’s Theater Arts Program. Abe was looking for the date of when the Great Lakes Shakespeare Company did a week long run of performances  in the Festival Playhouse at the Creative Arts Center. In a collection of news clippings from October of 1978, we were able to find a couple of items on this, and lo and behold there was a photo of a very young and largely unknown actor named Tom Hanks. He wasn’t even third billing in the program, where he played the role of Proteus in Shakespeare’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona. In a further WSU connection, current Theater Arts chair Stuart McDowell directed Hanks in his first New York stage production in 1979.

Click on the images below to enlarge them and read the whole article:

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One Response to Found in the archives: Tom Hanks performed at WSU

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